The missing chapter
by Charlotte.H.Davis
Summary: We all know how Percy's story goes. He's the undefeated, funny, sarcastic, goofy demigod we all know and love. And who's gone through hell and back for the ones he loves. And he will, in the end, get the happily ever after he deserves. Or will he? Discover the missing chapter Rick Riordan never published and hid from us all this time. But beware there is a reason for his secrecy.


_Dear reader,_

 _If you wish to continue reading I must warn you that there is a reason this chapter was kept hidden for such a long time. Percy Jackson is of course completely fictional. If you chose to believe that. And all the following events are completely made up. Unless you know better than that._

 _Now that we have revealed the end of the story, it is up to you decide if you like it and want to tell others about it, whispering how it really went. The real ending. Or burn it and tried to forget as much of it as possible, keeping it in the corner of your heart to yourself, not daring to curse another with what you know. Either way, I will not judge you._

 _You are the only one who will ever read this._

 _But only if you dare continue._

 _For you see, it is not a pleasant story_

 _You have been warned._

He opened his eyes and breathed. Only to find ash swivelling all around him, black pieces still burning in the air they floated in. Accompanied by a burning hot black fog. He hadn't felt it until the moment he opened his eyes, but now he could feel nothing but the heat. And an incredible pain.

He lay on his back, trying to breathe. But only the black fog would fill his lungs.

It was so thick he could hardly see anything further than a few feet before him. He was encircled by it, no gap in the darkness. It was too hot. Too dark yet not the pitch black of the end, not the black of peace and death, but the blackness of suffering still to come. A red mixed in with the black that made him able to see, but burned his eyes. The whole world was burning.

He wanted to close his eyes- wanted to rest. Wanted the pain to go away. But he couldn't. He couldn't go back to the nothingness that came before opening his eyes. He wouldn't. He needed to find her, needed to find his best friend, his girlfriend, his everything. Needed to find her in the darkness. Somehow.

He tried to sit up with great effort and only just managed. He coughed the unbreathable air from his lungs. He felt the weakness in every inch of his skin, in his very bones but he wouldn't stop. He pulled up the only strength he had left to stand but failed. An eye-watering pain shot up his leg and he cried out in utter agony. His voice echoed in the darkness where it was carried out over the hill.

He looked down and almost threw up at the sight. His legs were sizzling with fourth-degree burns. He didn't know how he had gotten them. He didn't know anything.

He tried to stand again, his sheer force of will got him on his feet. He searched around him in the bright darkness, his hand patting the ground until he managed to grab something solid. He patted it down in the hope of it being his trusted sword he could not feel in his pocket, but it was not. It was a long stick. He picked it up and used it as a crutch.

Percy couldn't understand what had happened or how he'd ended up here in the first place.

He tried to remember the past few days but couldn't remember a thing. It wasn't the first time his memory had been wiped, but that's all he knew. He started walking around, finding bodies left and right. Every time he saw one they were covered in burns and cuts, every new one worse than the last. Some of them familiar and some not. Some burned beyond recognition.

And even though Percy felt like lying down and giving up himself, he checked for a pulse with every person he passed. But nothing. Every single body he found was lifeless. But he kept going, looking for someone who survived. Someone had to tell him what to do because Percy didn't know. Someone else had to be alive.

With every step he grew weaker, with every single body he found he wished it was the last. With every new burn, he lost some hope but he kept going. Never even considering the heart-crushing thought that Annabeth lay dead among those bodies. Thinking of nothing but putting one foot before the other.

Suddenly a strong gust of wind rolled in from behind him, swirling the ash away and cooling the heat on his skin.

Some of the ash cleared before him and Percy almost fell to his knees with a silent sob at the sight, his mouth open in horror. He almost wished the darkness back. It at least hid the pain.

There was no one left standing. Demigods, nymphs, and satyrs lay motionless on Half-blood hill. The ground that used to be the brightest green had turned to mud. The protection this place once brought was gone. There was no one left.

Percy ran, ignoring the pain in his leg, ignoring the tug of the dead for him to join him and cried out Annabeth's name over and over again. He was so class to giving up to the call when he heard a response. So soft he feared it was but a voice in his head, but the wind whistling in his ears.

"Percy?"

Percy could recognize that voice anywhere, it was the same voice that soothed him when he woke up screaming from a nightmare. The voice that laughed when he did something stupid, the voice that called him seaweed brain. Annabeth.

He followed the soft trail of her cry and spotted her at the top of the hill and ran over to her. He barely saw it, just in the corner of his eye. But he knew his mind wasn't playing tricks on him as he passed the motionless body of Grover and Travis Stoll on his way. An arrow through each of them. When he got to her he stopped a few feet away as he withheld her. He finally felt the bile coming up and threw up and cried out at the sight.

"Oh God, oh Gods." he said over and over again. He wasn't much of a doctor but he knew the wound was fatal, she only had minutes left. She'd been stabbed multiple time in her sides and a spear in her leg. Percy ran closer to her and threw himself to the ground beside her, desperately grasping for her.

He held her in his arms and snapped the spear. He used his dagger to remove the splinters when Annabeth stopped him.

"Percy stop," she managed to say with a huge amount of effort, "It won't work."

Her voice was filled with the defeat Percy wouldn't show as his eyes filled with tears and his nose ran.

"No, you will be fine, you will be fine. I am not giving up on you. Never."

He said, but he knew it was over.

"I love you, don't leave me."

He sobbed, grabbing her face in his hands and wiping away the beautiful golden curls he loved so much that fell over her face. His tears joined hers and drew streaks down her face as the washed away the dirt and ash. Annabeth was losing consciousness and they both knew if she closed her eyes she would never open them again.

"Of course not, we promised. Remember?" She whispered and attempted an encouraging smile but it came out as a wince.

"You promised we would go to Rome together. You promised we would start a family together. Together." Percy said sobbing. He didn't want to lose his love.

"We won't go to Rome. But we will be together forever."

Annabeth said softly. How brave she was, to face death like that. But Percy couldn't. Percy had never been the brave one of the two.

"But how?"

Percy asked, his mind not capable of anything but panic and immense pain.

Annabeth took a few breaths before answering, her voice thinning further.

"It's a gift from the Gods. Athena whispered it to me in a dream. She said it was the last wish she would grant her daughter. That we would die together. They made sure we were both alive long enough to die together."

Percy was so confused, he looked around and asked the question he had been wandering all along. To talk about anything but her death.

"W-what happened here?"

Annabeth took a shuddering breath before answering,

"Gaia, we thought she was asleep but she woke and split herself into Uranus. History has repeated itself, my love. Only this time the Gods were overthrown. There promise upon the river Styx all that's left of them. All the demigods...They were all slaughtered. Here and all around the world, along with millions of mortals. Percy we are the last ones left. The mist has fallen. And soon we will die, and when we do; it will be together. I don't know how but we will be together."

"Together," Percy agreed, forgetting all the pain and fear. "I am not losing you again. Not in life and not in death either. We will face Him together."

"I love you," Annabeth whispered. "See you later."

Percy sniffed, his eyes never leaving the light of his life in his arms. His light was going out. He dimmed with her.

"Yes, see you on the other side. And if...if we don't. If we choose to be reborn I am sure we will find each other again. I will always find you. As I will always love you."

She said with her final breath. Tears were running down Percy's cheek and he bent down to place a tender kiss on her forehead, his eyes closing as agonising tears tore out of him. When he pulled away again he only just managed to see through his blurred vision to see her eyes closed. Her pain was over.

He took her hand in his and there was no pulse. Even though he was expecting it still hit him hard. He knew they would be reunited again, but still, he cried. He cried because he lost the love of his life, she had died in his arms and he couldn't have done anything about it. He cried because everyone he loved and his friends were dead and he was cursed to be the last one left. To have watched everyone die before he would. He cried because he and Annabeth would never have a future together. Never would they go to Rome, never would they have kids, never would he see her alive again. Never would he kiss her soft lips again. It was all over.

For the first time in a long time, Percy felt truly alone.

He took her head from off his hip and laid Annabeth down on the top of half blood hill. It broke his heart how much she looked like she was merely asleep. That she would simply wake up. But she never would again.

He lay down next to Annabeth, closed his eyes and held her lifeless hand. When he closed his eyes his life seemed to flash by before him. Random memories appeared before him. He and Annabeth at the beach, saving Olympus multiple times together, meeting each other for the first time, going on quests, at the pear when Annabeth said 'I love you,' for the first time. All those memories resurfaced including the very recent ones. He remembered a big battle, a battle between the earth and sky. Ash swirled everywhere, demigods and other creatures screamed as they burned. So many lives were lost. Then the army came in and finished off every remaining demigod. Except for him and Annabeth. The promised lovers.

Percy just lay there waiting for Death to claim him. But it never did.

He woke up again. The smoke and the ash was gone. He opened his eyes to a white ceiling. He sat up again and looked around confused. This wasn't the underworld. He was in a room with white walls, a white floor, a white bed and white sheets. He was in the hospital. Realization dawned on him.

Someone had saved him, prevented him from reuniting with his love. Where was she then? How had they found him and brought him back? Where was he? He began to panic. Why wasn't he with his Annabeth.

He couldn't live without her. He needed to get out and find her. Something had gone wrong, he needed to find whoever was responsible for this.

He got up of the bed, ignoring his leg put into a cast and looked around. He needed to get out. He headed for the door and tried the handle, but it was locked. He tried it harder but it wouldn't open. He tried the window next but there was no latch. He cried out in frustration. He punched the glass with all his might but nothing happened. He bruised his knuckles but the glass didn't give way. As he watched his injured hand he suddenly knew how to find her. She'd gone to the underworld, and he'd stayed behind. He needed to join her.

There was no easy way out, and there was nothing in the room that would help. He'd have to do it the messy way.

He put both his hands flat on the wall and took three deep breaths before tilting his head back and with all his might thrusting it forward again. His head collided with the wall with a deafening crack. He felt himself black out, but it wasn't done yet. He did it again and he was so close. He could see himself drift away, his soul drifting from his body to be guided by Hermes to the underworld. But then there were hands on his back, pulling him away from the wall. He couldn't fight them. His soul snapped back inside him as they brought him back to the living.

Days past and Percy didn't leave the hospital. He was tied down by the arms and didn't eat or sleep. He would just stare into space and cry. He couldn't sleep, for every time he closed his eyes he hoped he would never open them again. He would see Annabeth, and Grover, Jason, Piper, Leo, Frank, Hazel and every demigod he knew dead, each laying on the hill lifelessly.

He felt guilty, guilty that he was still breathing when Annabeth wasn't.

Guilty to have been able to do nothing but watch her die.

He wanted to be dead with her but would never have wanted her to be the one to see him die _._ The Gods had lied and not held out their promise. Percy's mother visited him often but couldn't get a single civil response out of him. He kept saying he wanted to join Annabeth and die. He felt guilty for how much it broke her mother's heart. Percy had been moved to a different room many times, each one more isolated than the last. Percy was classified as a suicidal patient.

The despair was itching at his mind. The anxiety. The guilt. The sense of not belonging. Not belonging to the living. The sense of being alone yet standing in a crowded room.

Every day a therapist would talk to him, in the begging he would lie. Lie about his life, making himself seem like just any other normal teenager who just happened to get stuck in the middle of this.

But the therapist wasn't fooled, he could tell there were gaps in the story and things that didn't add up. Percy was so tired, tired of being alive, tired of fighting, tired of lying so he told the truth.

"Look I never wanted to be a half-blood."

He told him everything from killing his first monster to fighting Gaia and helping Apollo but he couldn't tell him about the most recent events. Strangely enough, the man never wrote anything down, he just listened and Percy was never classified as crazy or mentally unstable. When Percy finished his story he felt empty like he had never achieved anything in his life.

"Thank you for sharing your story. Losing the ones you love, as you did, it leaves you broken. But not shattered."

The middle-aged man said as final advice and got up to leave.

"Wait!" Percy said. The only time he'd shown any real interest in something.

The man stopped.

"Yes?"

Percy asked the one thought that echoed through his head endlessly.

"How do I keep from shattering?"

The man smiled ever so slightly,

"You remember her, in heaven or whatever you believe in and imagine how happy she is to see you alive. To know that even when she is dead, you live on. That you get to be happy. Don't let her down Percy."

"But we were supposed to go together,"

"If that were true, you wouldn't be sitting here,"

He said and Percy said nothing. He wondered who the man before him was, to accept all he'd said, to understand Percy's pain so well.

"What's your name?"

He asked, not having listened when the man had introduced himself on their first meeting. It hadn't mattered at the time.

The man smiled and answered;

"Rick. Rick Riordan."

Percy only nodded and looked away to the window, letting the man leave.

Day, weeks, months might have passed but Percy didn't notice. He was waiting, waiting to join Annabeth. After a while, he was allowed to go home. His mother tried to take such good care of him but they both knew there was no healing for him. She would be better off he knew if he died now.

So one day, In the middle of the night, when his mother and stepfather were asleep he took a knife and stood on the balcony. He didn't even bother knowing the date. He closed his eyes and stood at the very end of the balcony, standing just before the railing. He breathed in the night air, savouring the feeling. Listening to the wind that rustled through his hair, the leaves. All his time in hospital he'd started noticing every little detail, of a room, of a person, of the nature around him. He did the same thing now, knowing it would be the last time he ever would. He opened his eyes and looked up to the stars for the last time, watching their miraculous sparkle. He opened his eyes again and let his hand holding the knife lift to his stomach. He pointed the knife at his stomach, ready to push it in. A voice in his head urged him on.

 _Just let go_.

 _You are weak_.

It whispered. It kept coming over and over again. Humming it in his ear. Encouraging him to give in.

He felt his soul collapse and crumple in on itself, felt himself fading back into that moment between nothing and everything. Felt that all too familiar lump lodge itself in his throat.

The voice kept whispering,

 _Just let go_.

 _What good have you done for the world? What do you have to offer to anyone anymore? Why stay here?_

Not a question. A statement. Because there was never an expected answer.

No. The despair answered for him.

He couldn't help it, couldn't live any longer with the guilty and he pushed the knife in. The movement was so slow and so willingly he didn't feel the pain, he just felt numb.

He felt himself collapse to the ground, laying there looking up at the stars. His breathing quickening. His heart began to beat faster and faster and faster and faster until it felt as if it could no longer beat and then it beat even faster, lurching forward as the walls were closing in around him.

He was falling falling falling and he couldn't breathe. His hand was slipping from the knife until it fell on the floor with a thump. He could no longer think and all he wanted to do was curl up and fade away and get rid of that feeling which was eating him alive from the inside out. The darkness was growing closer and closer and closer and he had no sense of who he was and what his name was and if he was alive or if he was dead or if he had faded past death and into that realm of the underworld.

Letting go of the cord which was wrapped around his soul and holding him together. Keeping him from sinking in that scalding, raging river he was drowning in.

He could see her, reaching out for him, wanting him to come to her. "You're almost there,' she said, "you're almost there and then we can be together forever. Just a little further."

 _Just let go._

And he did, he let go of the world letting it fall behind him but he didn't care, it didn't matter anymore he was united with her once again and not even the Gods could change that. He took her hand and whispered into the nothing.

 _Have you ever loved someone so much..._

 _You would give everything just to be with them…_

 _And I mean anything…_

 _Just to see them smile…_

 _One last time…_

 _Even though you know you will die…_

 _You let go anyway…_

 _You just can't lose them…_

 _Not again…_

 _We went through hell and back…_

 _We were never quite the same again…_

 _We fell…_

 _But that was so long ago…_

 _And now she is gone…_

 _I am Perseus Jackson…_

 _And I can't live without her…_

 _Look I never wanted to be a half-blood…_

 _I miss her so much…_

 _My one true love…_

 _My wise girl…_

 _My angel..._

 _I can't live without her again…_

 _I made an oath to never leave her…_

 _And I never will…._

 _I lie here bleeding out…_

 _I whisper one word…_

 _Annabeth._

 _My love, you are never getting away from me…_

 _Never again..._

 _I love you..._

 _The images of our quests flash through my mind..._

 _As I lie there lifeless…_

 _We're together again…_


End file.
